How my garden grows.....

We kind of cheat with our garden and put in starts. The last weekend of April or the first weekend of May the Tualatin Valley Gardners Association has their annual plant sales. We've been going for many years now to get our veggie starts and sometimes blueberry plants, flowers or trees for the yard.

We have been having a rather wet spring and early summer. So things were slow to get started. In fact I had to get new zucchini and winter squash plants because the slugs got to them and killed them. Home Depot's garden center fills in what we don't get from the plant sale.

This is what it looked like before we went to An Tir-West War:

Shelia got a whole bunch of the Swiss Chard (I planted them because they were supposed to be rainbow colored.) Spinach went into bags for the freezer (you can see them at the far right in the photo below.) I used some in the quiche we had for breakfast at War. (Yes, I planted nasturtiums in the veggie box.)

This is the pepper box with some nasturtiums planted here too. The ones on the far right are still small due to the slugs, but I think they'll have a chance to come along and do something in time.

Last year we had broccoli but they were kind of small wimpy heads. This year I got two HUGE heads to make some broccoli-wine-cheese soup out of. I also got two HUGE heads of cauliflower, with a third coming along (it was being overshadowed by the others). The two red cabbage plants are finally acting like they're going to produce heads.

The other one looked like this too.

Wonder if purple cauliflower starts were nearby? Notice the purple tints to the head? The other one didn't have much purple.

Artichoke. I've never grown one before. No idea what I should be looking for other than it seems to be healthy.

Roma tomatoes now taller than I am! Along with the cherry tomatoes, yellow again.

This one is a little slower but starting to grow tomatoes. I can't remember what it is, just not what the other two are. ;-)

Second zucchini plant and winter squash. There's some potatoes and onions in there also. The lemon verbena came back in the back right corner. The sage didn't come back but Brandon admits he could have accidentally ripped it out.

Both cherry trees provided lots of fruit. The asian pear and the Chehalis apple tree are both loaded with fruit. The blueberries are starting to ripen and the strawberries are still ripening. There are a few gooseberries, but I cut them back pretty heavily last year. The summer squash has starts and flowers loaded down and the zucchini not far from it has a bunch of flowers, so some of that coming soon.

An SCA friend is going to Italy for a year and so I got a bunch of her canning jars. I think I'll be putting them to good use this year! I think I'm going to miss the raspberry season, so may have to substitute in Marionberry and Blackberry jams in its place. Very good substitutes!

So while things I think could be producing more, the cloud cover and humid days don't seem to be hurting the garden terribly. How does your garden grow?